Review: ...BUT I'M YOUR TEACHER

 Teacher/student relationships have (unfortunately) been a steady part of romance manga for decades, and that goes double for BL.  Some series sneak it in on the sly, while books like this one tell you upfront what you're in for.

...BUT I'M YOUR TEACHER (Seito no Shucho Kyoshi no Honbun), by Row Takakura.  First published in 2001 and first published in North America in 2006.

PLOT:

Mr. Yahiro is a handsome, delicate young substitute teacher.  He's loved by his colleagues, his students love him, but he himself is in love with the tall, strapping teen Koga Kyouchi.  Koga is constantly, aggressively eager for sex but Yahiro has to walk a constant tightrope between his career and his passions.  As Yahiro's assignment comes to an end, that tension only grows stronger.

STORY:

I've been upfront on this site that I'm generally not a fan of teacher/student romances because they are built around an inherently inequal foundation.  ...But I'm Your Teacher tries to counter this by making the student the aggressor in the relationship, but Takatura only serves to make it more awkward by marrying it to the same old seme/uke formula.

Mr. Yahiro might be a little older than most ukes of the time, but he's just as much of a swoony, sensitive push-over as the rest.  In comparison, Koga isn't as cold and rapey as many of the semes of the era.  Indeed, the story makes a point about the contrast between his rough exterior and his emotional sensitivity towards Yahiro and others.  Still, he's the one always pushing for more and if the two of them interact for more than two or three pages then it's almost certainly going to end in sex. You'd think that Takatura could at least mine some quality melodrama from the tension between Yahiro's professional life and his love life or the six-year age gap between him and Koga, but it's largely glossed over in the name of generic passion.

Of course, being a BL manga from the height of the seme/uke era this book comes with all the usual pitfalls.  In the second chapter Koga starts saying how Yahiro's kindness will end up making him "the perfect rape victim."  Half a dozen pages later, Yahiro gets sexually assaulted by the parent of a child he's tutoring, which serves only as motivation for Yahiro to run back to Koga's arms and treat him like a man instead of just a student.  Those two chapters are it for their story, and the rest of the books is taken up with short stories of variable quality.

As you might expect, age gap romances or similarly taboo relationships are a running theme here.  The only exceptions are "Scandal Kiss" (which is about a relationship between an actor and his stuntman) and "Happy Honey Baby" (about an 18 year old and his salaryman boyfriend playing house while babysitting the former's infant niece).  Even then I have my doubts about the second one, if simply because he's drawn so young.  It wouldn't be the first time this publisher changed a character's age in a BL manga.  It really doesn't help when said salaryman boyfriend seduces his significant other with a line about how caring for a baby "makes me feel like I'm watching you as a baby."  "Bloom" is also something of an outlier.  Not only is it about a pair of step-brothers getting together but it's also the only comedic piece to be found here.  Even then, the pacing is so brisk that any potential comedy in the disconnect between the ordinary Nozomu missing his beautiful stepbro's blatant flirting is lost.

"Voice Box" and "The View From the Lens" were the ones I found most questionable in content.  The former is about a teenaged sex worker who is busted by a journalist who blackmails him into unpaid sex, which ends with the teen falling for him immediately afterwards.  The latter is about a photographer who becomes sexually obsessed with his latest model/muse.  This takes a darker turn when the photographer reveals that he LITERALLY WENT TO JAIL AND WAS REGISTERED AS A SEX OFFENDER because he had done this before with other underaged boys.  Somehow this statement is not a prelude to murder but instead a dramatic confession that plays out as the lead-up to the inevitable sex scene.  I was already getting worn out with these short stories because they tend to follow the same story and emotional beats, but seeing this much justification for characters who are just creeps took things a step too far.

ART:

Row Takatura's art is not bad, particularly for the era it was released in.  There's something about the combination of the rich blacks they use along with their delicate linework that's kind of striking.  I also like the way they draw faces.  While it's true that everyone here has at least a minor case of Dorito chin, it's countered by their dark, expressive eyes and finely-drawn hair.  Everything below the neck is a little more dodgy, as Takatura is also guilty of drawing lots of spidery, weirdly jointed hands.  She also goes a bit too far at times with her ukes, drawing them in such a short, feminine way as to make them look even more inappropriately young than they are.  She's also not terribly good at sex scenes, all of which become nothing but a jumble of limbs, faces, invisible phalluses, and way too many fluids.

PRESENTATION:

Media Blasters was never terribly careful about their manga releases and that certainly shows here.  There are pages that where the edges were clearly cut off, and I suspect the letterer chose to use a thin Arial-esque font more for the sake of aesthetics and space-saving than for readability.

RATING:

...But I'm Your Teacher makes no pretense about its fondness for forbidden romance, but even the fujin who are into this sort of thing will find themselves getting exhausted after reading over half a dozen variations on the same theme, each of them more rushed and questionable than the next.

This book was published by Media Blasters under their Kitty Media imprint.  It is currently out of print.

Review: THE GORGEOUS LIFE OF STRAWBERRY-CHAN

No mangaka is perfect.  At some point they will produce a less than great work, and it's worse when they work in comedy manga.

THE GORGEOUS LIFE OF STRAWBERRY-CHAN (Strawberry-chan no Karei na Seikatsu), by Ai Morinaga.  First published in 1999 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

Strawberry-Chan is a pet frog belonging to the callous high-school student Akiyoshi.  Strawberry loves his master desperately, but Akiyoshi only loves torturing and smacking Strawberry around for his own amusement.  In contrast, Akiyoshi's roommate Masayuki has a fanatical crush on the frog, while the freshman girl Kaoru has her own desperate, masochistic obsession with Akiyoshi.  Life is so hard for a little frog when they have to face boys in frog suits, mad scientists, soul transfers, and the ever-present threat of Akiyoshi blowing him up like a balloon via a straw up his butt.

Review: POISON CHERRY DRIVE

Of course, for every great BL out there there's easily half a dozen BL books of lesser quality, and this amongst the worst I've come across in the site's history.

POISON CHERRY DRIVE (Poizun Cheri Doraibu), by Modoru Motoni. First published in 2005 and first published in 2006.

PLOT:

There's a site called Cherry Drive that promises to satisfy the needs of any young gay man who applies (although young, virginal ones are preferred), whether that's revenge for a rape or simply to satisfy their most secret desires.  If approved, you meet up with the men of Cherry Drive: the frantic president Ai Iidai, the chill Mamezo Takano, and their token straight go-fer Kenny Boy.  Their cases never seem to work out quite how they want them to, but somehow things seem to work out.

Review: FUJOSHI RUMI

With con season in full swing, it's time to once again take a look at manga that are all about fandom, otaku-dom, and all things nerdy.  Of course, these days the focus is less on the traditional male otaku and more on their pervy sisters in slashiness, the fujoshi.

FUJOSHI RUMI (Mousou shoujo otaku kei), by Natsumi Konjoh.  First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

Rumi was simply content to spend her days squeeing over her favorite shows, her favorite man-on-man ships, and especially her own vivid fantasies about class hunk Chiba and his best friend Takahito hooking up.  Then Takahito accepted an invitation to model for her in art club and instead found himself falling head over heels for Rumi.  He might not understand what she's talking about half the time, but he's determined to make his feelings for her known even if he must compete with both his best friend and Rumi's newest fujoshi friend for her time and attention.

Merry Month of Manga Review: LEVEL C

A lot of BL manga has to find the right balance between story and smut.  If you ignore the former for the latter, then you can end up with a rather sparse and empty manga like this one.

LEVEL C (Keiraku no Hoiteishiki Level-C), written by Aoi Futaba with art by Kurenai Mitsuba.  First published in 1993 and first published in North America in 2005.

PLOT:

Mizuki is a popular model with a dark past.  His is a lonely life until he meets promiscuous businessman Kazuomi.  Kazuomi promises him a night of ecstacy that he will never forget and Mizuki takes him up on the offer.  What neither of them could have suspect that this one night would turn into a serious relationship.

STORY:

This might be the slightest manga I've reviewed all month.  That's not to say that the story is bad.  It's just that the story is very basic and truly is little more than a hanger upon which the writer hangs their smut.

The most original thing about it is the opening.  It's not just the fact that it's build around a one-night stand, it's the fact that both Mizuki and Kazuomi treat it like a dare.  It gives their encounter a certain sort of crackle of passion that might overwise be lacking.  It's a shame that Futaba couldn't keep the mood up because the story and cast alike are severely lacking in personality.  Sure, Mizuki gets a brief but concentrated bit of melodrama for his backstory and the both of them have older siblings (a twin in Kazuomi's case) that are said to be important to them both, but that's pretty much all we learn about them.  The backstory never really comes into play in the larger narrative and the siblings play such minor roles that they might as well be strangers, and it leaves you wondering why they bothered with it at all.

He also doesn't waste any time getting these two together in a committed relationship, which is not necessarily a good thing.  In the span of one chapter the two go from strangers to roommates, and by the next one the two confirm their love for one another.  This might be fine if it were suggesting that this was happening over a course of weeks or months, but as-is this shift to commitment is positively whiplash-inducing.  Mizuki might be young and inexperienced enough that I could understand him falling in love so fast, but it makes no sense for a playboy like Kazuomi.  Right from the beginning, we're shown that he prioritizes sex above all things in a relationship.  He's not particularly concerned whether it works out in the long-term or not, but instead is merely content to sponge off his partners for as long as they'll tolerate him.  It's going to take more than sweet words to convince me as the reader that this guy is even capable of loving Mizuki for more than just his body or that he sincerely cares about him and his welfare. 

Of course, Futaba never lingers on this issues for very long.  They truly are little more than a prelude to the sex scenes.  They tend to get dragged out because Mizuki tends to get scared about how fast and far Kazuomi likes to go and voices his protests.  Unfortunately, because this is a BL manga Kazuomi almost always ignores Mizuki's pleas and Mizuki ends up enjoying anyway.  It's framed in a far less violent and dramatic manner than one usually sees in these sorts of books, but it punctures the romantic mood that he's so clearly going for.  At least the publisher chose to change one little fact that would have made everything so much worse.  In the localized version, Mizuki is 18.  In the original, he was 16.  It was a wise choice on their part to do so, but no amount of localization could change the fact that the characters of Level C are too hollow to stand on their own and their relationship progresses far too fast to make sense for these characters.

ART:

The artwork is surprisingly attractive for both its age and subject matter.  It's pretty obvious that this was made in the early 1990s, as the character designs have the delicate beauty and poufy hair that was so typical of the era.  Still, there's a simplicity to them that lends them a certain beauty.  This is only emphasized by the way that Mitsuba frames them.  There are some downright elegant panels here, ones where a profile fades into the background dreamily or a passionate embrace is enhanced with the dramatic shading of a twilight evening.  He makes great use of screentones, softly blending them into speech bubbles, emphasizing expressions, or just evoking the fall of light across a wall. 

Even the sensual scenes retain this sense of elegance.  They take on an old-school Cinemax quality thanks to the lighting and Mitsuba's choice to either frame the action in a way that avoid showing any explicit parts or action or just outright censoring any on-screen wangs.  It's rare that we get more than the merest suggestion of the shape, and most of the time it's completely absent.  I know this is not something done later by the publisher as at the time of its release the publisher made a big deal out of how this work was being presented uncut.  He certainly goes out of his way to drag them out visually as much as possible, as each sex scene goes on for well over 20 pages.  Indeed, his paneling tends to prefer large and sparse visuals in general, so it's Mitsuba's art that allows the story to stretch so far on such little material.  In that sense, the two are well-matched.

RATING:

Level C has simple yet refined artwork that is striking in its own way, but the story is too slight and stretched out to linger in the reader's mind after putting it down.

This series was published by Media Blasters.  This series is complete in Japan with 6 volumes available.  All 6 were published and are currently out of print.

Merry Month of Manga Review: PLEASURE DOME

Being a history geek, I've always had a soft spot for historical BL, even if the ones I've come across so far have been disappointing.  Today's offering takes that disappointment to new heights.

PLEASURE DOME, by Megumu Minami.  First published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

This collection of five stories spans the ages but shares a common theme of powerful men slaking their lusts on vulnerable men, even as they fall in love.  We see a depraved medieval lord get his comeuppance from his right-hand man and a knight held prisoner, a Hindi prince conquering the heart of a British officer, a brothel owner finding salvation in a Japanese Christian martyr, an incestuous love triangle in fin de siècle France, and a Victorian-era master and servant switching places and discovering the depth of their devotion to one another.

STORY:

I really wanted to give Minami some credit for choosing some unconventional times and places for her setting.  You don't see a lot of stories set in medieval France (much less based on The Song of Roland), colonial-era India, or during the persecution of Christians in 1600s Japan.  She uses some real historical figures and conflicts as the seed for some good premises.  It's too bad that every single one is spoiled by some really terrible writing and her insistence on shoving in as much exploitative and kinky sex as possible.

Minami displays a veritable laundry list of kinks over the course of this volume.  There are sex toys, alcohol enemas, anal insertion of objects like eggs and bells, bondage, aphrodisiacs, orgies, bestiality, and the sort of dom/sub relationship where grown men are turned into virtual sex slaves through near-constant rape.  Even in a genre where rape as romance is the norm, this sort of content is pretty extreme and would likely turn off a lot of regular BL readers.  She makes no attempt to ease the reader into her kinks.  Instead she practically slaps them across the face with them and doesn't stop until the end.   While I personally do not subscribe to these kinks, I don't necessarily object to their presence.  I wouldn't mind seeing more BL explore the kinkier sides of sex.  What I do object to is Minami's fondness for rape. 

Every story finds a way to bring in rape.  Even the last story finds a way to squeeze in a rapey con man in what is otherwise a fairly tame, even romantic take on The Prince and the Pauper.  Otherwise it's nothing but a parade of decadent, evil men in fancy costumes doing their best to break down noble men through kinky sex, presented in a manner that is clearly meant to titillate the reader.  As someone who generally does not like rape in her smut, this to me was far more disgusting than any kink she could have thrown at the reader.  Worse still, she uses this near constant parade of rape as justification for the eventual romances in all but the last story.  Eventually the raped and the rapists find themselves craving one another to the point where they delude themselves into believing it is love.  At least she doesn't try to give these messed-up relationships some sort of happy ending.  Most of the perpetrators end up dead or at the very least in bad circumstances. 

Minami's faults go far beyond her taste in smut, though.  Her writing is simultaneous rushed and disjointed, and more often than not things seem to happen for the sake of convenience than out of some logical progression of events.  She only bothers with a few pages of set-up so she can get her semes raping young men as soon as possible and her characters jump straight from resentment to devotion in the course of a couple of panels.  Hell, actually plot points are simply skipped straight over so she can move on to the next sex scene.  Maybe that's just the fault of the translation, which is blunt and amateurish.  She's clearly not concerned with her settings, the stories within them, or her characters.  They are all little more than set dressing for her rape fantasies or hurdles that she awkwardly leaps over so she can get straight back to said fantasies.  This sort of material is simply wasted upon her.

ART:

Minami's art is no better than her writing.  Her characters are stiffly drawn and tend to have the same face regardless of time or setting.  They damn near drown in their long sweeping hair or decadently patterned costumes.  They also have some unusual features like their weirdly Vulcan-like ears or her propensity for drawing huge hands with weirdly huge fingernails.  Not shockingly, the stiffness of her characters only gets more obvious during the sex scenes.  Even when taken out of context, they possess all the raw sensuality of rubbing two scarecrows together. 

They're also heavily censored, which means that all this kinky sex is taking place amongst men with no dicks.  At best, there are vague shadows that suggest a penis; most of the time they simply have none at all.  I don't know whether this is an original feature or something done by the publisher, but it seems strangely contradictory to the purpose of the volume.  Of course, neither the story nor the sex matters when Minami is so terrible at putting them together.  The pages are pure chaos with panels laid over one another at will and perspective is all over the place.  It's just a mess of a book.

RATING:

Pleasure Dome is pleasurable to no one but its creator.  It's cruel, crudely written, exploitative, and assembled with an indifference that can only come from a lack of talent.  Like history itself, let us learn from this series so that we never have to see it repeated.

This book was published by Media Blasters.  It is currently out of print.

Merry Month of Manga Review: CRIMSON SPELL

Speaking of forgotten BL publishers, it's easy to forget that Media Blasters once dabbled with the genre themselves during that brief period where they tried publishing manga in general.  Most of the titles are of no particular interest...save for one, that is.

CRIMSON SPELL (Kurimuzon Superu), by Ayano Yamane.  First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

Prince Vald only wanted to save his castle from a rampaging demon, but in the process he was cursed by a magic sword.  He sets out to find a cure for his condition, only to find the sorcerer Halvir instead.  Halvir soon discovers that unless restrained, Vald's curse turns him into a savage beast brimming with magical energy and the only way to calm it down is to tire with lots of gay sex.  As time goes on, Halvir starts to care for Vald, but it seems that Halvir has issues from his own past that he must resolve if their quest is to continue.

STORY:

Fantasy is something you don't see a lot of in BL.  I suspect the biggest reason for that is that decent fantasy requires some degree of commitment to devising a suitably creative world and story.  This is in conflict with the expectations most fans have for BL works, which is to offer as much smut as possible as frequently as possible.  Amazingly, Yamane managed to exceed my expectations and deliver a series that balances the two parts perfectly in Crimson Spell.

That being said, we're not dealing with a George R. R. Martin-level masterpiece here.  The basic plot is fine - there's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned hero's quest - but Yamane's creativity only stretched as far as her randomly smashing letters together until she came up with something vaguely Nordic for all the proper names and such.  She also likes to shove in as many magical things as she can: magic swords, magic shape-shifting familiars, even an entire school of wizards frozen in time.  Still, it's well-paced so that the progress of the story always feels like it's matching the progression of Vald and Halvir's relationship.  She saves the smut for the lower-key parts of the story which means that it never derails the story like so many other, lesser works.

If you're familiar with Yamane's best-known work, Finder, then you'll know that Ayano Yamane is noticeably more kinky with her works than most BL mangaka.  Crimson Spell is no exception to this, but she does adapt her kinks to work within the fantasy setting.  That means that instead of traditional rope bondage, she uses magical bondage as well as the sadly inevitable tentacles.  Of course, that's on top of Halvir's rather sketchy notion of consent as well as the question of how much this would count towards bestiality.  I can't say how palatable any of this will be to any given reader, but the kinkier elements are incorporated in a way that doesn't jar the reader from the story at large and it's used infrequently enough that it never becomes too awkward or tiresome.

Our leading pair is also kind of basic as far as fantasy characters go, but she put a surprising amount of thought into making those personalities complement one another.  Vald is a veritable Boy Scout of a man, one so hopelessly innocent and noble that verges upon naïve.  Still, his goodness is tempered by the guilt he feels over the damage he's done in his cursed form, a creature that is nothing but base and violent desires.  Over time it also comes to include his growing fondness for Halvir.  He might not fully understand why he's so attached to the man, but he'll fight to protect it (and Halvir) nonetheless.  In comparision, Halvir is sly and cynical.  He joins Vald's quest not out of the goodness of his heart, but because Vald's curse intrigues him.  He's also more than selfish enough to take advantage of Vald's curse (and his body) to sate his lust and top off his magical energies, knowing full well that Vald is completely unaware to what happens to him in his beast form.  Mercifully, Yamane stops Halvir from becoming a complete monster of a man when he's forced to confront both the mistakes of his past and his own feelings for Vald and start doing right by both.  In some ways it's just another example of opposites attracting, but those additional bits of depth allow them both to stop becoming less like a typical seme and uke pair and more like partners on equal footing.  That also means that they both have character arcs of their own and thus their story doesn't necessarily end when they confess their love.  That along with all the other factors noted above give Crimson Spell an edge that few BL series possess, one that makes it an enjoyable read.

ART:

Yamane's come a long way as an artist since stuff like Finder, and it shows on every page.  Her character designs may still trend towards the sorts of lithe bishonen seen in BL works everywhere, but there's a sense of life to these characters that I don't often get from BL art.  The men may be lithe but they actually have some muscle on them, which gives them a bit more dimension then one usually gets.  She also handles the action scenes well, as the sweep of spells or an attack have a sort of lively energy about them that makes them genuinely fun to behold.  She also manages to strike a good balance between man and beast in Vald's transformation.  He's still pretty humanoid in form, but there's just enough difference in the details as well as Vald's body language to sell the concept to the reader without straying into awkward furry territory.

She also makes excellent use of artistic angles to bring energy to her scenes, and this is no more evident than during the sex scenes.  They go by in montages shown from every sort of angle, and it gives the impression that the two are wildly thrashing about in passion, shifting positions on a dime.  Other times she makes great use of perspective as a sword or staff pokes its way out of its borders or communicating the speed and strength of Vald's beast form.  I've rarely seen panel composition used so well to communicate both mood and movement and it's almost criminal that I find it in a series of gay fantasy smut.  Still, I can't help but admire her skill.

PRESENTATION:

My review is based off the SuBLime reissue of this series, not the original one from Media Blasters.  It's hard to find a lot of details about the previous release, but most reviews of it indicate problems that were endemic to Media Blaster's manga releases.  That means plenty of weird font choices, amateurish dialogue placement, and a few odd spelling errors and inconsistencies.  In comparison, SuBLime's translation is smooth as silk and highly consistent with the rest of their works.

RATING:

Crimson Spell will never be mistaken for high fantasy, but it stands above the crowd thanks to a well-balanced couple and some incredibly dynamic bits of art.  It's easy to see why SuBLime rescued this series and it's one that's well worth any BL fan's time.

This series is currently published by Viz under their SuBLime imprint, and formerly by Media Blasters.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 6 volumes available.  The 2 volumes from Media Blasters are out of print, but 5 volumes from SuBLime are currently in print and available as e-books from Sublimemanga.com.

Merry Month of Manga Review: EIKEN

I've put it off as long as I could, but it's time to finally review one of the weirdest, grossest, most tasteless things to ever grace the North American manga market.

EIKEN, by Seiji Matsuyama.  First published in 2001, and first published in North America in 2005.

PLOT:

Densuke has just started at Zashino Academy and he's ready to find a place for himself amongst the student body.  The choice is made for him when he stumbles into the sizeable chest of sweet yet shy Chiharu.  Afterwards, Densuke is whisked away by Chiharu's friends, a collection of busty young ladies who call themselves the Eiken Club.  No one knows just what they do, but their Amazonian president Kirika is determined to bring Densuke into their fold and pair him up with Chiharu.  As for Densuke, he's simply hoping he can survive the club's activities with his life and dignity intact, much less find a way to communicate how he feels to Chiharu.

STORY:

Have you ever read a manga that was so stupid and pandering that at first you presume that it HAS to be satire?  Did you then realize that there was no joke to be found within and that its perversion was completely and utterly serious and it simply is one of the worst things you've ever read?  Well, then you must have done the same stupid thing that I did by reading Eiken.

I don't doubt at least that Matsuyama was at least trying to be amusing.  If there's one rule here when it comes to the story, it's that wackiness reigns, so it's perfectly OK to teddy-bear-shaped mech suits or make a running gag out of the Eiken Club stealing things from the other school clubs.  The problem is that Matsuyama is under the misapprehension that fanservice counts as a joke.  Believe it or not, I don't have a problem with raunchy humor.  A well-timed sex joke or double entendre can be great fun, but I do have a problem with people who think that you can substitute a lot of cleavage and bulging crotches for actual jokes.  If anything, it's just one lame joke repeated over and over: Densuke sees giant boobs/butt/panties/whatever, freaks out, falls down, and gets a nosebleed.  The only thing that distinguishes this particular version is the outrageousness of the fanservice, but more on that later.

If the plot summary didn't give it away, the plot is little more than a flimsy excuse to give Densuke a harem.  Most of the girls get a dedicated chapter to ostensibly bond with Densuke, but the most prominent plot thread is Densuke's ongoing, awkward flirtation with Chiharu, which in turn is constantly complicated by Kirika doing her best to embarrass the boy with elaborate stunts or just pushing him into the nearest set of boobs.  This might come off as a bit cruel if it Densuke were anything other than the story's punching bag.  He's a bland nebbish who lives in constant, fretful embarrassment, and his lack of personality extends to the Eiken club as well.  Each girl is defined by a single archetype or quirk: Chiharu is shy, Kyoko is obsessed with science, Komoe is motherly and moe, Lin Grace is...um...er...foreign?, "Teddy" is a little girl who hides her tininess and shyness in a giant bear suit, and Kirika has her fondness for theft and public embarrassment.  Each girl gets her chance to hammer her particular quirk into the reader's face, and given enough time they'll hammer that same quirk straight into the ground through sheer repetition.

Eiken is nothing but a hollow exercise in harem clichés.  Every single element of the story, be it character, plot, or humor, has only the barest minimum of effort applied and it mistakes randomness and fanservice for good humor.  Honestly, if it weren't for the giant boobs on display, no one would remember this at all.

ART:

So let's talk about that fanservice, shall we?  It's not just that Matsuyama shoves it in at every single opportunity, it's that he seems to prefer the sort of fanservice that most would regard as grotesque.  The proportions on the girls' chest are the sort you never see outside of hentai, with boobs that are easily 2-3 times larger than the girls' heads. Sometimes he tries to compensate for that by give the girls big hips or big, virtually sentient hairstyles, but that just makes things look worse.  What makes it truly bizarre is that Matsuyama isn't terribly consistent with the level of detail.  Sometimes he clearly spent ages doing his best to realistically render each seam and wrinkle in Chiharu's panties, and he wants to show off that effort by take each and every opportunity to show them off.  The rest of the time, though, he lets things get shockingly off-model.  Heads and bustlines can grow and shink wildly from panel to panel, faces go off-model near constantly, and any piece of clothing that isn't panties is crudely rendered and no matter how tight it's meant to be, it's all worn with the grace of a burlap sack.  I'm kind of surprised that the backgrounds in and around the school are as nicely drawn as they are, considering everything else.  Maybe Matsuyama handed those off to the assistant so he could focus more on the panties.  Eiken is just a visually appalling book.  It's so inconstantly drawn that it doesn't even work as spank material.  It's just hideous and lazy from cover to cover.

RATING:

Don't read Eiken.  This can't even be enjoyed on the so-bad-its-good level.  It's an ugly, by-the-numbers harem that's distinguished only by the frequency and bizarreness of its fanservice, and if Media Blasters had any sense, they would have never brought it over in the first place.

Oh what am I saying?  Media Blasters hasn't had any good business sense about anything for the better part of a decade.  They still shouldn't have released this, though.

This series was published by Media Blasters.  This series is complete in Japan with 18 volumes available.  12 volumes were published and all are currently out of print.